Irony
by Mere Anarchy
Summary: The very last irony of his life was the one he would never know about. [Kakacentric with implied KakaSaku]


Irony's a bitch, Kakashi knew. One day you turned around and everything was gone but the irony, staring you in the face like Evil Incarnate.

He was currently occupying his favorite barstool, contemplating his life, or rather what was left of it. The bar reeked of cheap alcohol and body odor, but he didn't mind so much, as long as he wasn't bothered.

_Irony's a bitch. Irony's a bitch._ A dead man's mantra.

This thought produced another bitter smile, another shallow breath. Kakashi wasn't dead. Kakashi was never dead (but always hoping, hard and fast and desperate like tasting sex and liquor on a stranger's mouth at midnight).

He was perverted and he was lazy but he wasn't suicidal. Hatake Kakashi had pride, and not only that—

He swallowed, winced. _Not only that, he didn't want to end up like his father._

There. It was out in the open. _Hatake Kakashi didn't want to end up like his father. Did you hear that?_ A drunk stumbled by the copy-nin's bar stool and Kakashi took the man's shoulders and shook them for emphasis, a wild look in his lone eye. _HATAKE KAKASHI DIDN'T WANT TO END UP LIKE HIS FATHER. _

The inebriated old geezer muttered angry words and wiggled around in Kakashi's grip; the jounin promptly released him, alarmed.

He turned back to the counter, running a hand through his hair. _You're losing it, old man,_ he told himself. _You're losing it. _

Had he ever had it? He knew he'd had something. Once.

Every woman he met these days was unconsciously dissected and simultaneously compared to _her_, and every woman was found lacking. None of them had the sparkle her green eyes held, and none of them possessed the beautiful pink hair that felt like silk as he ran his hands through it. None of them were good enough to even be mentioned in the same sentence as Sakura.

Yes, Kakashi had something once. But he'd gone and screwed it up, just like he'd screwed up every other good thing in his life. _Why couldn't he tell her that he loved her?_

He chuckled bitterly to himself, tasting the stale must of his breath as it was caught against his mask and shoved down back down his throat, just like the words he hadn't bothered to say. He played with the cigarette in his hands, never putting it to his lips but rolling it around in his fingers in fluid, endless motion. Kakashi had never smoked before. Smoking killed, and Kakashi couldn't die.

The jounin leaned back in his chair, pulling a lighter out of his pocket and flicking it on in a single movement. Another simple gesture and the cigarette was lit, smoke filtering quietly through the filmy bar-room atmosphere. Kakashi had never smoked before and it was too late to start, but he liked to play with cigarettes in musty old bars, leaning back in his chair and pretending to be the living dead. Because that's what smokers were, right? Dead men who breathed. He'd once gone out with a girl who smoked, pre-Sakura, and he still remembered her waxen, bloodless lips in nightmares.

_Because_ Kakashi couldn't die, because he'd become a sort of flirt with Death over the years, he liked to pretend. Lighting up an endless supply of cigarettes in an endless assortment of bars, waiting for the sweet release that was endlessly out of reach. The copy-nin leaned back into the chair again, watching the cigarette butt smolder in a conveniently-placed ash-tray. Cigarettes– now those were things of termination. There was a sort of poetic justice in the way these so-called sticks of cancer died so quickly, while he was stuck watching until the very end. Until the very end, when he would pull out another with the fluent urgency and light it up, again, again, again.

Kakashi rose with quiet precision, at odds with the drunken lurching that surrounded him on all sides. Something was telling him that tonight would be different. Something was telling him that he needed to get home.

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The head of the Konoha police department was once again sitting in his favorite spot, a quiet corner of a dinky little bar where no one ever looked for him. The room reeked of cheap alcohol and body odor but he didn't mind, as long as he wasn't bothered.

Tonight he was finally reviewing a report that he had been avoiding for a few days now. He shuddered, wiping off the sweat that had accumulated on his brow. Suicide reports always gave him the willies, and this particular case dealt with a man who had been viewed by the citizens of Konoha with utmost respect– Hatake Kakashi, the infamous copy-nin.

He peered over grisly photographs of the body, found only a few hours after the approximate time of death. In the written report, an investigator noted that they found a message from Hatake's ex-fiancee on his answering machine that gave the case a kind of somber finality.

The man had probably never heard his ex-lover's words, he was probably already dead by the time she called. But there was a kind of haunting beauty to her words; a poetic justice in the way her voice was hoarse, like she had been crying for a long, long time; already mourning an event she knew nothing of. "I always knew you loved me."

_Yep_, the Chief of Police thought, leaning back in his chair as he lit up a much-needed cigarette. _Irony's a bitch. _

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**A/N:** Well, there you have it. I'm rather proud of this little one-shot, so if you flame me I'll have to shoot you. . . Just joking. Sort of.

-Mere Anarchy


End file.
